How to Be Seen

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Are You Sure What You Do Matters…? Read this to make sure.

August 22, 2018

So, this blog in general is about helping you live the life of your dreams…and most of the time, I talk about that in terms of business, because having a more awesome business is usually my answer for more creativity, abundance, and fulfillment in your life.

But today I can’t write about marketing or being fearless or making your Instagram pictures better.

Because I kinda don’t care about that at this very moment.

Today, I’m sitting in Starbucks getting ready to start my work day. I ordered an iced tea, sat down with my planner to make lists so I can start to crank out some copy.

And I stopped.

Somehow I landed on reading an essay my middle school friend just published in the New Yorker where she talks about grieving her mother’s death in an Asian grocery store. It’s beautiful. It makes my heart break for Michelle. It makes me wonder what I would do if I lost someone close. It helps me to see that grieving is a process that never really ends. It reminds me that without our relationships, do our lives really have much meaning?

I wiped away a tear and took another sip of my iced tea in the Starbucks near my apartment, put down my pen, and started to write this.

So, this is a call. To you, to every artist/designer/photographer/maker…anyone who has a business or is considering starting one.

PLEASE. Do something that matters.

Even if your business starts with “I think I can do that,” or “I need some money,” it needs to continue with, “how can I create something that truly matters?”

It’s so beyond a follower number, how glamorous your brand looks, and the impressive features you can put on your resume.

In the end, it’s whether you’ve been able to have an influence for good in the world that really counts.

If you already feel it in what you do, my hat’s off to you. You’re ready to take things to the next level and challenge yourself to figure out how you can multiply that good, or take it to an even higher level for the people you serve now.

If you don’t feel that yet, it’s okay too! We all have to start somewhere, and I can promise you for the first several months of my (non)business, I was impacting no one for good…

Challenge yourself.

Reach inside your heart and tell the stories that need to be told.

You CAN do that.

You don’t have to have 100k followers or anyone’s permission to create something that matters.

All you have to do is click out of the profile of whomever you’re comparing yourself to, grab your camera or your paint brush or your chisel or crack your knuckles dramatically above your keyboard and start clicking away.

Your first attempt will probably be terrible. Maybe your first ten will be. But you’ll figure it out. Just keep going. Because if you’re not going to tell the stories that really do matter, that ONLY YOU can tell, if you’re not going to bring the good into the world that only you can, who will?